Report – Rafa Gets Tough – Demands Newcastle Sign Townsend

The Mail is reporting tonight that Rafa Benitez is demanding the Newcastle hierarchy pay the full £15M Crystal Palace want to have Andros on loan at Newcastle for the rest of the season.

The loan fee is £2M – and the £13M transfer fee is what it will take to seal the permanent transfer in the summer, if Rafa decides to make the deal permanent.

Newcastle have been after Andros for a few weeks now and things are getting close, since the transfer window closes tomorrow night at 11:00 pm.

Rafa is reported to be unhappy that this could enter the last day of the transfer with no players signed yet by Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley the Managing Director and no deal agreed.

Rafa Benitez – not happy with lack of progress From Rafa’s unhappiness at the situation it seems Newcastle are not willing to do the deal that would take the full £15M for a loan fee and permanent transfer to get Townsend.

There have been reports today about why the deal is being held up – and it seems it’s on the Newcastle side and Rafa wants Newcastle to pay up.

Maybe Mike Ashley should think of the big picture – the £150M a season Newcastle will get if we are promoted back to the Premier League and not argue about a relatively measly £2M?

This has become a saga in the last week or two with Rafa getting concerned that no progress has been made on the two players he wants the hierarchy to bring in.

Rafa wants a winger – Townsend is his first choice – and a central midfielder – James McCarthy of Everton is his top choice.

Rafa gave up earlier this month on also trying to bring in a striker.

This doesn’t sound good and we hope it’s not a beak between Rafa and the Newcastle hierarchy, although things seem to have been leading up to this as Rafa has continually asked for players in the transfer window ever since the start of January.

Rafa was given certain assurances when he agreed to stay at Newcastle last May and some of those assurances were for the transfer windows and how much money would be available to spend.

But it now seems Rafa is forced to bring in only loan players as it appears Mike Ashley has made no money available this month to sign players permanently.

That could be serious if it goes against what he agreed with Rafa to get him to stay at Newcastle and all the agreements are written down as part of Rafa’s Newcastle contract.

For the good of Newcastle United we hope this thing gets sorted out to everybody’s agreement – and quickly too.

As much as I like rafa I think I would be reluctant to pay 2 million to have townsend for 19 games. With his wages thrown in say 50k, thats around 155k per game! Tell them to do one or just buy him outright for God’s sake. Sick of hearing his name now.

manxpie, The team the played Birmingham had played together no more than the one that started against Oxford, there were four regular starters against Birmingham and only two against Oxford, bearing in mind our top scorer is injured and three players are away on ACoN duty, Diame, Atsu and Mbemba may well have started on Saturday had they not been away.

This is what we have been missing for the past 6 or 7 seasons. Someone with some stones to challenge Ashley.

What I don’t understand in this Townsend saga is: Ashley is only allowing loan deals until we secure promotion. However Rafa has made it clear for a while that both McCarthy and Townsend are long term signings. Seeing this new update that Palace want the full 13 million and a 2 million loan fee why doesn’t Ashley just fork out the 13 million and forget all this nonsense about loans. Townsend is tried and tested so little risk and it will almost guarantee us promotion. From what I have read Palace are stating that there is an Obligation to buy at the end of the loan. If that is the case then just buy the guy already and forget the loan. (repeating myself here but just can’t get my head around it). By Arsing around they are also risking their So Far sound relationship with Rafa. If that goes to crap then it all goes to crap. As always Ashley makes his and our lives more complicated than they have to be.

Signings aside I think we have the squad to go up comfortably. Players like Diame, Perez, Mitro, Laazar and Mbemba need to stand up and be counted. In too many matches Shelvey, Ritchie and Gayle have won us the games (as well as Clark and Darlow at the back). If everyone starts playing to their level (especially Diame) than we should be winning games comfortably. Atsu is going to come back full of confidence too. Not to forget the Big man Sammy is back : ).

As gutted as I will be if we don’t sign anyone by Wednesday morning I don’t think it is time to panic. Rafa’s man management skills will need to work overtime to get the full squad performing at Shelvey and Gayles level.

Final word. I would be gutted if Mbemba goes. He is a Prem player in my view. Much better with the ball at his feet than Lascelles. He isn’t maybe suited for this league but we will pay a fortune to get someone like him once we go up (hopefully). Hanley is pants but Rafa seems to feel he suits this league more than Chancel. I think Rafa should give more game time to Mbemba even as a fullback or DM as he can’t be worse than Tiote, Colback or even Anita in centre mid.

Not sure how anyone saying the league is a priority justifies the side selected and the performance. It was a team selected with no real serious interest in progressing to the next round. It is not right to talk up how we are really going for and are taking the cups seriously then put out a side like that. It isn’t fair or justifiable to promise that to fans who spend hard earned money on these away days only to select a what could barely be called our second 11 in some areas.

Imagine if Pardew, Carver or McClaren had put out a side like that and lost like that? They would be getting all the abuse under the sun. Rightly so as well I guess, but not sure why Rafa escapes criticism for it.

On transfers, I don’t think we need anyone in to get promoted. Of course, it would have been good to be able to get a couple of high quality additions in, but the squad should still be more than good enough. Looks like Townsend is the only one on the radar, and personally I wouldn’t want him back, but I can see why some do. He’s completely flopped at Palace after ditching us for the bright lights. Would prefer we went for Brady (had gone for Brady if he has moved already).

Interesting to see rumours of an unnamed Championship club bidding for Mooy of Man City (on loan at Huddersfield). He would add more to the central midfield for us, although I’ve never heard us mentioned as linked to him, so I doubt the unnamed club is us….

Hahahaha. Comedy Gold on the blog. Never fails. First we have Ian Toon – the Master Multiple having a dig and wailing about his failed writing career. Yawn.

Then we have Jib “it’s a shootout” Jibberish complaining about people lying on the blog. Bit of pot and kettle here. Jib has told us he is a lecturer in Modern European History, a lecturer in Psychology, fluent in Spanish, reads all manner of European papers, listens to Italian radio and more lately he knows the rules of the FA Cup.

Lilongwe, Pardew fielded a team with no intention to progress while we were tenth with no chance of relegation and no chance of finishing higher than tenth, Carver bleated about how much the cup meant to him while we were in a very healthy position and completely went back on his word against bottom of the table Leicester, the fans who went to Oxford knew there would be a lot of changes the manager told us so. If Mitro had of been up to it we could have won.

Jail so a defence like that was just giving them their chance? Come on, 3 crocks with probably less than 2 games between them I really don’t see why you are trying to justify the selection it was shocking simple as that

So we might lose 15 mio or mbemba for a guy who 1.only had 5 good months as a player in his career, 2.left us and benitez for palace and pardew.. 3.now he wants to come back, but is not willing to put in transfer request.. So we will pay more, than what we got for him..

Unlike previous managers, Rafa is completely in the picture when it comes to transfers. His optimism last week therefore must have been based on reality, not wishful thinking. Surely it’s the selling club that is causing the hold up here.

Jail, Rafa said there would be changes, but that team put out was not a team that was there with any plan to secure progression. Yeah, it might have managed it on another day, but Mitro just back to fitness, Barlaser, Good, El Mahni, Lazaar and Haidara.

It wasn’t a team that showed any sign of taking the cup seriously as had also been said by Rafa.

Manx, You’d think it was Huddersfield, but if it is it seems a bit odd that the club was unnamed in the report…

The team selection was very weak, and showed no desire or intent to progress. Not sure how anyone can justify it. We have people claiming the league is the priority, when Charnley and co said that they were given dogs abuse.

Going out of the cup is always disappointing, losing 3-0 to Oxford is pretty poor though, and I don’t understand why people need to justify it all. Just accept Rafa ballsed it up, or wasn’t interested in the cup. Time to look forward to the next game, and hopefully bounce back with a performance to erase the cup memories (again).

If, as seems most likely now, a player to cover for Shelvey is not brought in then promotion is on very thin ice. If he goes down with a serious injury it can’t be better than a 50/50 proposition. We all saw what it was like without him. Bigger picture here too. If FSW can’t get money out of Ashley this window, is there going to be any to spend if we do get promoted? This is not a rapidly improving squad ready to hit the Premier League running. It’s a load of cobbled together second rate players who may (may) get it done in the Championship. If Ashley doesn’t cough up the money to do a major re-build promotion will be just a waste of time.

Lilongwe, I’m surprised and disappointed that you are comparing Churnleys statement of league is priority with statistics to show cups are bad while sitting pretty in tenth with Saturdays poor show while promotion is clearly the goal and especially after we gave the EFL such a good go

It’s impossible for some to accept rafa can do any wrong unfortunately, I’ve pointed this out a few times and just don’t get it. Yes Rafa is the best manager we’ve had in donkeys but he won’t leave us if he’s criticised for his poor selections.

The other thing I can’t understand and have highlighted is we do have the BEST squad in the league by some distance, if Rafa can’t get us promoted with what we have then maybe he isn’t the right man for the job…..yes I said it.

We shouldn’t be panicking over signings in this window as they won’t improve a lot on what we have, townsend coming in with mbemba going the other way makes us weaker defensively. Ritchie, townsend and Atsu are all wide men that prefer the RW so why not sign a LW rafa instead of someone who couldn’t wait to jump ship.

I’ve never been a pardew fan or McClaren and I like rafa, but I’m not blinded by his mistakes, yes Rafa makes mistakes like all of us do!!

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